Garett Reppenhagen wrote:My war was completely different than Chris Kyle’s war. That doesn’t mean his war is wrong, and mine was right. But it does mean that no one experience is definitive.

The movie depicts compounded action scenes with very little political and regional context. It was a conscious decision by Clint Eastwood, apparently, to leave out the cause of the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. It was a conscious decision, apparently, for multiple characters to describe the Iraqis as “savages” and never show any alternative. When I heard of the bigoted reaction some Americans had after watching the film, I was disgusted, but not surprised. Audience members are mistaking Chris Kyle’s view of the war as “the” story about the war. No wonder someone tweeted that the movie made them “want to go kill some ragheads.” It’s sad that such a nearsighted portrayal of Iraqis has caused more people to fear Arabs and glorify violence against them.

It would be refreshing if a big Hollywood movie would take on the task of creating a less dramatized, more nuanced version of warfare. There are some incredible documentaries on the subject. “Occupation: Dreamland” and “Restrepo” capture the life of a service member in a modern deployment without sugarcoating the hard political environment that is a backdrop to the conflicts.

[quote="Garett Reppenhagen"]My war was completely different than Chris Kyle’s war. That doesn’t mean his war is wrong, and mine was right. But it does mean that no one experience is definitive.

The movie depicts compounded action scenes with very little political and regional context. It was a conscious decision by Clint Eastwood, apparently, to leave out the cause of the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. It was a conscious decision, apparently, for multiple characters to describe the Iraqis as “savages” and never show any alternative. When I heard of the bigoted reaction some Americans had after watching the film, I was disgusted, but not surprised. Audience members are mistaking Chris Kyle’s view of the war as “the” story about the war. No wonder someone tweeted that the movie made them “want to go kill some ragheads.” It’s sad that such a nearsighted portrayal of Iraqis has caused more people to fear Arabs and glorify violence against them.

It would be refreshing if a big Hollywood movie would take on the task of creating a less dramatized, more nuanced version of warfare. There are some incredible documentaries on the subject. “Occupation: Dreamland” and “Restrepo” capture the life of a service member in a modern deployment without sugarcoating the hard political environment that is a backdrop to the conflicts.[/quote]

[url=http://www.salon.com/2015/02/01/i_was_an_american_sniper_and_chris_kyle%E2%80%99s_war_was_not_my_war/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow]I was an American sniper, and Chris Kyle’s war was not my war[/url] by Garett Reppenhagen

Dardedar wrote:We have a real piece of work running for the Ward 1 position Fayetteville. Below is an article he wrote. Since word was getting around he changed the name on the article to Malcolm Swift. When that too was exposed, he took it down. Here's an extra copy, from the webcache:

Mr. Phaneuf wrote fifty-five blog entries on the Tea Party Nation website. He has since removed all traces of all of them. This whiny little message is the last trace of the brave patriot Paul Phaneuf on the TPN website:

"Thanks for being sufficiently curious about the truth to come visit my profile here on Tea Party Nation.

He complains about mischaracterization and innuendo, yet he has removed fifty-five examples of what he actually thinks from the TPN website. He claims in this news story that his blog post could have been "taken out of context", but he has removed all context. Never mind his distaste for government and many of its legitimate functions. Should you believe that this disdainful blog post was a one-off, or should you believe that his incisive "satire" comes from a pervasive, deep-seated disdain for people who are helped by government-- the takers, the no-skin-in-the-game, can-but-won't parasites that Steve Womack and every other Teabagger and Teabagger enabler has been kvetching about for the last five years? (Hint: his "satire" is more about insulting Julia than about the way government assistance supposedly makes women dependent.)

[quote="Dardedar"]We have a real piece of work running for the Ward 1 position Fayetteville. Below is an article he wrote. Since word was getting around he changed the name on the article to Malcolm Swift. When that too was exposed, he took it down. Here's an extra copy, from the webcache:

Here's where it was: http://www.teapartynation.com/m/blogpost?id=3355873%3ABlogPost%3A1998889[/quote]Mr. Phaneuf wrote fifty-five blog entries on the Tea Party Nation website. He has since removed all traces of all of them. This whiny little message is the last trace of the brave patriot Paul Phaneuf on the TPN website:

"Thanks for being sufficiently curious about the truth to come visit my profile here on Tea Party Nation.

"If you want to know what I actually think, rather than the mischaracterization and innuendo that opponents of common sense, economic efficiency, limited government and our Constitutionally protected God given rights would have you believe, go visit my web page at http://www.PaulPhaneuf.com"http://www.teapartynation.com/profiles/blogs/welcome-to-the-truth

He complains about mischaracterization and innuendo, yet [b]he has removed fifty-five examples of what he actually thinks from the TPN website[/b]. He claims in this news story that his blog post could have been "taken out of context", but [b]he has removed all context[/b]. Never mind his distaste for government and many of its legitimate functions. Should you believe that this disdainful blog post was a one-off, or should you believe that his incisive "satire" comes from a pervasive, deep-seated disdain for people who are helped by government-- the takers, the no-skin-in-the-game, can-but-won't parasites that Steve Womack and every other Teabagger and Teabagger enabler has been kvetching about for the last five years? (Hint: his "satire" is more about insulting Julia than about the way government assistance supposedly makes women dependent.)

We have a real piece of work running for the Ward 1 position Fayetteville. Below is an article he wrote. Since word was getting around he changed the name on the article to Malcolm Swift. When that too was exposed, he took it down. Here's an extra copy, from the webcache:

***The Life of Julia the Pathetic LoserPosted by Paul Phaneuf on May 4, 2012 at 4:30pmView BlogSo let’s look at The Life of Julia the Pathetic Loser.

At the age of 3, Julia is enrolled in a Head Start Program where she will learn about Heather’s two mommies, the joys of masturbation, the foolishness of freedom, and the hypocrisy of the American Founding Fathers.

She will learn the identity of the real Messiah, the Kenyan Barry Soteoro, and the American President who single handedly lowered the level of the oceans and saved planet earth from stupid humans while simultaneously ushering in the New Stone Age.

At the age of 17, she takes the SAT, gleefully cheats on her exam and achieves a perfect score of 800 when she successfully navigates the times table all the way through to the sixes.

She trains for the Race to the Top, a program implemented by President Barry, however Julia finds that her advanced degree in “The History of the Occupation Movement and Its Contribution to the Downfall of American Prosperity” is not in high demand among employers and is disappointed to learn that no one is willing to pay her for useless propaganda.

At the age of 18, after her third abortion, Julia and her family which comprises of Julia, the four children she did not abort, and her life mate Galtilla the Witch, qualify for President Barry’s American Opportunity Tax Credit.

Julia and Galtilla are tickled pink as this gives Julia the chance to earn her doctorate in Secret Mathematical Tables of the Coven, not a religion. Julia has used the money to retain an attorney in anticipation of the discrimination lawsuit she will file if she is not hired by the local diner for $350,000 a year.

At the age of 22, Julia, Galtilla and the four kids are on her parents Medicare insurance and, thank the god Barry, do not have to experience the duress of paying for health care insurance. After navigating the bureaucracy, Julia is elated to get an important surgical procedure approved before she turns 30. Unfortunately, the surgery is performed at the local butcher shop because no one has entered the involuntary servitude of the medical profession since Julia was 3.

Because of the Lilly Ledbottom Fair Play Action Association, Julia is one of millions of women who get to stand up for her right to equal pay, a situation Julia intends to capitalize on as soon as the manager from MacDonald’s returns her calls.

At the age of 25, Julia’s federal loans are more manageable from her hovel in the Bank of China Gulag in the Florida Everglades. She makes her payments on time every month, or else.

By the age of 27, Julia and 120 million other women have worked as web designers for one of Obama’s czars who have been in power for 24 years. Finally Julia and Galtilla are neutered under the Chinese mandate of no more than one child per hovel per gulag.

At the age of 31, Julia decides to have a child with a man whose name she would like to remember, but after numerous attempts, Julia is diagnosed as unable to have children because she has been neutered. Thankfully, she can still collect benefits for prenatal care and, using her newly issued ITIN is compensated for all the children she could have had, including the ones she aborted.

At the age of 37, Julia’s four children are repeating Kindergarten for the seventh time and Julia opts for the Race to the Top degree in Kindergartenology for all of her children. There is great rejoicing when Julia and Galtilla learn that their eleven year old daughter is pregnant.

At the age of 42, Julia wants to start her own web business. The Smaller Business Administration offers her three and a half million dollars not to start the business and Julia uses the money to purchase a tent and a faux fur coat which she shares in the winter with her children and 14 grandchildren in the gulag. Unfortunately, Julia has been evicted from her hovel for violation of the Bank of China’s policies. Galtilla is nowhere to be found.

At the age of 65, Julia enrolls in Medicare and heads right to the butcher so she can grab a number and schedule a checkup by her 72nd birthday.

At the age of 67, Julia retires from her successful career not designing web sites in the business the government paid her not to start and she receives monthly benefits without worrying that she’ll run out of savings. Unfortunately Julia is very lonely because she has sold all her children into bondage to pay for bread and rat soup.

President Barry doesn’t spend two seconds thinking about Julia or any other woman from his mansion on the top of Mount Olympus where he has resided with all the other gods for all these years.

Julia dies an old broken, ignorant, hungry bondservant in the gulag at the ripe old age of 68.

All Hail King Barry.***

We have a real piece of work running for the Ward 1 position Fayetteville. Below is an article he wrote. Since word was getting around he changed the name on the article to Malcolm Swift. When that too was exposed, he took it down. Here's an extra copy, from the webcache:

***The Life of Julia the Pathetic LoserPosted by Paul Phaneuf on May 4, 2012 at 4:30pmView BlogSo let’s look at The Life of Julia the Pathetic Loser.

At the age of 3, Julia is enrolled in a Head Start Program where she will learn about Heather’s two mommies, the joys of masturbation, the foolishness of freedom, and the hypocrisy of the American Founding Fathers.

She will learn the identity of the real Messiah, the Kenyan Barry Soteoro, and the American President who single handedly lowered the level of the oceans and saved planet earth from stupid humans while simultaneously ushering in the New Stone Age.

At the age of 17, she takes the SAT, gleefully cheats on her exam and achieves a perfect score of 800 when she successfully navigates the times table all the way through to the sixes.

She trains for the Race to the Top, a program implemented by President Barry, however Julia finds that her advanced degree in “The History of the Occupation Movement and Its Contribution to the Downfall of American Prosperity” is not in high demand among employers and is disappointed to learn that no one is willing to pay her for useless propaganda.

At the age of 18, after her third abortion, Julia and her family which comprises of Julia, the four children she did not abort, and her life mate Galtilla the Witch, qualify for President Barry’s American Opportunity Tax Credit.

Julia and Galtilla are tickled pink as this gives Julia the chance to earn her doctorate in Secret Mathematical Tables of the Coven, not a religion. Julia has used the money to retain an attorney in anticipation of the discrimination lawsuit she will file if she is not hired by the local diner for $350,000 a year.

At the age of 22, Julia, Galtilla and the four kids are on her parents Medicare insurance and, thank the god Barry, do not have to experience the duress of paying for health care insurance. After navigating the bureaucracy, Julia is elated to get an important surgical procedure approved before she turns 30. Unfortunately, the surgery is performed at the local butcher shop because no one has entered the involuntary servitude of the medical profession since Julia was 3.

Because of the Lilly Ledbottom Fair Play Action Association, Julia is one of millions of women who get to stand up for her right to equal pay, a situation Julia intends to capitalize on as soon as the manager from MacDonald’s returns her calls.

At the age of 25, Julia’s federal loans are more manageable from her hovel in the Bank of China Gulag in the Florida Everglades. She makes her payments on time every month, or else.

By the age of 27, Julia and 120 million other women have worked as web designers for one of Obama’s czars who have been in power for 24 years. Finally Julia and Galtilla are neutered under the Chinese mandate of no more than one child per hovel per gulag.

At the age of 31, Julia decides to have a child with a man whose name she would like to remember, but after numerous attempts, Julia is diagnosed as unable to have children because she has been neutered. Thankfully, she can still collect benefits for prenatal care and, using her newly issued ITIN is compensated for all the children she could have had, including the ones she aborted.

At the age of 37, Julia’s four children are repeating Kindergarten for the seventh time and Julia opts for the Race to the Top degree in Kindergartenology for all of her children. There is great rejoicing when Julia and Galtilla learn that their eleven year old daughter is pregnant.

At the age of 42, Julia wants to start her own web business. The Smaller Business Administration offers her three and a half million dollars not to start the business and Julia uses the money to purchase a tent and a faux fur coat which she shares in the winter with her children and 14 grandchildren in the gulag. Unfortunately, Julia has been evicted from her hovel for violation of the Bank of China’s policies. Galtilla is nowhere to be found.

At the age of 65, Julia enrolls in Medicare and heads right to the butcher so she can grab a number and schedule a checkup by her 72nd birthday.

At the age of 67, Julia retires from her successful career not designing web sites in the business the government paid her not to start and she receives monthly benefits without worrying that she’ll run out of savings. Unfortunately Julia is very lonely because she has sold all her children into bondage to pay for bread and rat soup.

President Barry doesn’t spend two seconds thinking about Julia or any other woman from his mansion on the top of Mount Olympus where he has resided with all the other gods for all these years.

Julia dies an old broken, ignorant, hungry bondservant in the gulag at the ripe old age of 68.

But yesterday, one Texas congressman [said], ...Obama “definitely deserves” to be impeached – again, no one knows why – but House Republicans can’t pursue this because they don’t have time. Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX) [argued] that the House is too busy to get to it:

“The president deserves to be impeached. Plain and simple,” he said. “But … we have so much on our plate that it’s not practical.”

This isn’t a good argument. It is, however, an unintentionally hilarious argument. Not to put too fine a point on this, but the Republican-led House really doesn’t do much. Perhaps it’s time to update one of the year’s more important charts:

But yesterday, one Texas congressman [said], ...Obama “definitely deserves” to be impeached – again, no one knows why – but House Republicans can’t pursue this because they don’t have time. Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX) [argued] that the House is too busy to get to it:

“The president deserves to be impeached. Plain and simple,” he said. “But … we have so much on our plate that it’s not practical.”

This isn’t a good argument. It is, however, an unintentionally hilarious argument. Not to put too fine a point on this, but the Republican-led House really doesn’t do much. Perhaps it’s time to update one of the year’s more important charts:

"Another study co-authored by psychologist-turned-political consultant Drew Westen found that the brains of strong partisans — whether Democratic or Republican — actively resist information that is unflattering to their party’s presidential candidate.Westen’s research is particularly sobering. He and his co-authors took brain scans of committed Democrats or Republicans while they were processing information that painted their party’s candidate in a poor light. What he and his co-authors found is that the areas of the brain associated with calm, reasoned thinking showed little activity while a partisan’s brain is processing such information. Instead, the partisan’s brain actually uses a reward and punishment system to prevent them from changing their strongly held beliefs. Once a partisan is confronted with unwelcome facts about a favored candidate, the centers of their brain associated with emotional distress kick into gear, and those centers remain active until the brain finds away to rationalize away the unwanted information. When that happens, the distress centers of the brain turn off and the centers associated with positive feelings turn on. As Westen later explained, these positive emotional centers “overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their ‘fix.’”Committed partisans are almost literally addicted to remaining committed partisans."http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/0 ... proves-it/

"Another study co-authored by psychologist-turned-political consultant Drew Westen found that the brains of strong partisans — whether Democratic or Republican — actively resist information that is unflattering to their party’s presidential candidate.Westen’s research is particularly sobering. He and his co-authors took brain scans of committed Democrats or Republicans while they were processing information that painted their party’s candidate in a poor light. What he and his co-authors found is that the areas of the brain associated with calm, reasoned thinking showed little activity while a partisan’s brain is processing such information. Instead, the partisan’s brain actually uses a reward and punishment system to prevent them from changing their strongly held beliefs. Once a partisan is confronted with unwelcome facts about a favored candidate, the centers of their brain associated with emotional distress kick into gear, and those centers remain active until the brain finds away to rationalize away the unwanted information. When that happens, the distress centers of the brain turn off and the centers associated with positive feelings turn on. As Westen later explained, these positive emotional centers “overlap substantially with those activated when drug addicts get their ‘fix.’”Committed partisans are almost literally addicted to remaining committed partisans."http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/04/21/3428832/you-cant-trust-the-supreme-court-science-proves-it/

"The night before the 2008 Nevada Republican convention, the Ron Paul delegates all met at a Reno high school. Although I’d called myself a libertarian for almost my entire adult life, it was my first exposure to the wider movement.

And boy, was it a circus. Many members of the group were obsessed with the gold standard, the Kennedy assassination and the Fed. Although Libertarians believe government is incompetent, many of them subscribe to the most fringe conspiracy theories imaginable. Airplanes are poisoning America with chemicals (chemtrails) or the moon landings were faked. Nothing was too far out. A great many of them really think that 9-11 was an inside job. Even while basking in the electoral mainstream, the movement was overflowing with obvious hokum.

During the meeting, a Ron Paul staffer, a smart and charismatic young woman, gave a tip to the group for the upcoming convention.

“Dress normal,” she said. “Wear suits, and don’t bring signs or flags. Don’t talk about conspiracy theories. Just fit in.” Her advice was the kind you might hear given to an insane uncle at Thanksgiving.

Then next day, I ran into that same operative at the convention, and I complimented her because Ron Paul delegates were being accepted into the crowd. I added, “We‘re going to win this thing.”

“Bring in the clowns,” she said, and smiled before I lost her in the mass of people.

I will never forget that moment: Bring in the clowns. At the time, I considered myself a thoughtful person, yet I could hardly claim to be one if you judged me by the company I kept. The young lady knew something I had not yet learned: most of our supporters were totally fucking nuts."

"The night before the 2008 Nevada Republican convention, the Ron Paul delegates all met at a Reno high school. Although I’d called myself a libertarian for almost my entire adult life, it was my first exposure to the wider movement.

And boy, was it a circus. Many members of the group were obsessed with the gold standard, the Kennedy assassination and the Fed. Although Libertarians believe government is incompetent, many of them subscribe to the most fringe conspiracy theories imaginable. Airplanes are poisoning America with chemicals (chemtrails) or the moon landings were faked. Nothing was too far out. A great many of them really think that 9-11 was an inside job. Even while basking in the electoral mainstream, the movement was overflowing with obvious hokum.

During the meeting, a Ron Paul staffer, a smart and charismatic young woman, gave a tip to the group for the upcoming convention.

“Dress normal,” she said. “Wear suits, and don’t bring signs or flags. Don’t talk about conspiracy theories. Just fit in.” Her advice was the kind you might hear given to an insane uncle at Thanksgiving.

Then next day, I ran into that same operative at the convention, and I complimented her because Ron Paul delegates were being accepted into the crowd. I added, “We‘re going to win this thing.”

“Bring in the clowns,” she said, and smiled before I lost her in the mass of people.

I will never forget that moment: Bring in the clowns. At the time, I considered myself a thoughtful person, yet I could hardly claim to be one if you judged me by the company I kept. The young lady knew something I had not yet learned: most of our supporters were totally fucking nuts."

The rest: http://www.salon.com/2013/12/28/why_i_fled_libertarianism_and_became_a_liberal/

This is good too: "What America Would Look Like If Libertarians Got Their Way"http://www.alternet.org/what-america-would-look-if-libertarians-got-their-way?page=0%2C0&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

Selling public resources to private companies for them to profit off of is a hot trend in cities and states—not all of them controlled by Republicans, either. Privatization deals affecting everything from parking meters to child welfare to public water systems are often negotiated in secret, carried out with little oversight, and subject to massive cost overruns and corruption.The sordid story of Chicago's parking meters has to be a top entry in any "worst privatization stories" competition. Rick Perlstein laid out the ugly details in The Nation a couple months back:

Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2008 struck a deal with the investment consortium Chicago Parking Meters LLC, or CPM, that included Morgan Stanley, Allianz Capital Partners and, yes, the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Abu Dhabi, to privatize our meters. The price of parking—and the intensity of enforcement—skyrocketed. The terms were negotiated in secret. City Council members got two days to study the billion-dollar, seventy-five-year contract before signing off on it. An early estimate from the Chicago inspector general was that the city had sold off its property for about half of what it was worth. Then an alderman said it was worth about four times what the city had been paid. Finally, in 2010, Forbes reported that in fact the city had been underpaid by a factor of ten. [...]Not only does CPM get the money its meters hoover up from the fine upstanding citizens of Chicago. It gets money even if the meters are not used. Each meter has been assigned a “fair market valuation.” If the City takes what is called a “reserve power adverse action”—that can mean anything from removing a meter because it impedes traffic flow, shutting down a street for a block party or discouraging traffic from coming into the city during rush hour—“CPM has the right to trigger an immediate payment for the entire loss of the meter’s fair market value over the entire life of the seventy-five-year agreement.”

Shut down one meter that the market-valuation says makes twenty-two bucks a day, in other words, and the City of Chicago has to fork over a check for $351,000—six days a week ... fifty-two weeks in a year, times seventy-five—within thirty days. Very easily, Geoghegan points out, a single shut-down of parking in a chunk of the city—say, for something like a NATO summit Chicago hosted last year—"could be more than the original purchase price of the deal."

[size=150]Parking meters and prisons: Top six privatization horror stories[/size]

Selling public resources to private companies for them to profit off of is a hot trend in cities and states—not all of them controlled by Republicans, either. Privatization deals affecting everything from parking meters to child welfare to public water systems are often negotiated in secret, carried out with little oversight, and subject to massive cost overruns and corruption.The sordid story of Chicago's parking meters has to be a top entry in any "worst privatization stories" competition. Rick Perlstein laid out the ugly details in The Nation a couple months back:

[quote]Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2008 struck a deal with the investment consortium Chicago Parking Meters LLC, or CPM, that included Morgan Stanley, Allianz Capital Partners and, yes, the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Abu Dhabi, to privatize our meters. The price of parking—and the intensity of enforcement—skyrocketed. The terms were negotiated in secret. City Council members got two days to study the billion-dollar, seventy-five-year contract before signing off on it. An early estimate from the Chicago inspector general was that the city had sold off its property for about half of what it was worth. Then an alderman said it was worth about four times what the city had been paid. Finally, in 2010, Forbes reported that in fact the city had been underpaid by a factor of ten. [...]Not only does CPM get the money its meters hoover up from the fine upstanding citizens of Chicago. It gets money even if the meters are not used. Each meter has been assigned a “fair market valuation.” If the City takes what is called a “reserve power adverse action”—that can mean anything from removing a meter because it impedes traffic flow, shutting down a street for a block party or discouraging traffic from coming into the city during rush hour—“CPM has the right to trigger an immediate payment for the entire loss of the meter’s fair market value over the entire life of the seventy-five-year agreement.”

Shut down one meter that the market-valuation says makes twenty-two bucks a day, in other words, and the City of Chicago has to fork over a check for $351,000—six days a week ... fifty-two weeks in a year, times seventy-five—within thirty days. Very easily, Geoghegan points out, a single shut-down of parking in a chunk of the city—say, for something like a NATO summit Chicago hosted last year—"could be more than the original purchase price of the deal."[/quote]

The rest: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/29/1265472/-Parking-meters-and-prisons-Top-six-privatization-horror-stories

***Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities

"Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the ground.

That is not wild-eyed hippie talk. It is the assessment of the utilities themselves.

Back in January, the Edison Electric Institute — the (typically stodgy and backward-looking) trade group of U.S. investor-owned utilities — released a report [PDF] that, as far as I can tell, went almost entirely without notice in the press. That’s a shame. It is one of the most prescient and brutally frank things I’ve ever read about the power sector. It is a rare thing to hear an industry tell the tale of its own incipient obsolescence."

I think it is wrong presumption.. US has made wrong policies and now increasing taxes to cut down usage of solar energy.. Not good at all.

[quote="Dardedar"]I think this goes in politics:

***[b]Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities[/b]

"Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the ground.

That is not wild-eyed hippie talk. It is the assessment of the utilities themselves.

Back in January, the Edison Electric Institute — the (typically stodgy and backward-looking) trade group of U.S. investor-owned utilities — released a report [PDF] that, as far as I can tell, went almost entirely without notice in the press. That’s a shame. It is one of the most prescient and brutally frank things I’ve ever read about the power sector. It is a rare thing to hear an industry tell the tale of its own incipient obsolescence."[/quote]

I think it is wrong presumption.. US has made wrong policies and now increasing taxes to cut down usage of solar energy.. Not good at all.

"Tampa Bay Times compiled a list of the Top 50 worst charities... Many names of the worst charities are very similar to legitimate charities. For instance, the number one worst charity, Kids Wish Network, sounds much too similar to, Make A Wish Foundation - a legitimate respected organization, where donations go to helping very sick children see one of their dreams come true. With the Kids Wish Network, only 2.5% the $127.8 million they raised, went to direct cash aid. So where did the other millions go? $109 million of it went to paying solicitors to raise the money.

According to Kendall Taggart, of The Center For Investigating Reporting, many charities exist pretty much to pad the pockets and salaries of their founders. Often the value of goods that are shipped overseas cannot be verified. And then there are charitable goods shipped domestically that are outright insults to the recipients....

Here are the 50 of the worst charities. They are ranked starting with the worst and by how much they raise, how much goes to pay the fund-raising solicitors, and how much goes to the actual charity. The title link above the list, will bring you to a page with an interactive chart and more information on charities in general." LINK

Note: "Watchdog groups say no more than 35 percent of donations should go to fundraising costs. There is no standard for how much should be be spent on direct cash aid."

"Tampa Bay Times compiled a list of the Top 50 worst charities... Many names of the worst charities are very similar to legitimate charities. For instance, the number one worst charity, Kids Wish Network, sounds much too similar to, Make A Wish Foundation - a legitimate respected organization, where donations go to helping very sick children see one of their dreams come true. With the Kids Wish Network, only 2.5% the $127.8 million they raised, went to direct cash aid. So where did the other millions go? $109 million of it went to paying solicitors to raise the money.

According to Kendall Taggart, of The Center For Investigating Reporting, many charities exist pretty much to pad the pockets and salaries of their founders. Often the value of goods that are shipped overseas cannot be verified. And then there are charitable goods shipped domestically that are outright insults to the recipients....

Here are the 50 of the worst charities. They are ranked starting with the worst and by how much they raise, how much goes to pay the fund-raising solicitors, and how much goes to the actual charity. The title link above the list, will bring you to a page with an interactive chart and more information on charities in general." [url=http://samuel-warde.com/2013/08/have-you-donated-to-any-of-these-americas-50-worst-charities/]LINK[/url]

Note: "Watchdog groups say no more than 35 percent of donations should go to fundraising costs. There is no standard for how much should be be spent on direct cash aid."

"Americans spend an estimated $5 billion a year on unproven herbal supplements that promise everything from fighting off colds to curbing hot flashes and boosting memory. But now there is a new reason for supplement buyers to beware: DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds."

This responds nicely to the common libertarian claim that we don't need an FDA or government checking quality. "The free market will take care of it."

Bogus vitamins and Herbs:

[size=150]Herbal Supplements Are Often Not What They Seem[/size]

"Americans spend an estimated $5 billion a year on unproven herbal supplements that promise everything from fighting off colds to curbing hot flashes and boosting memory. But now there is a new reason for supplement buyers to beware: DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds."

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/science/herbal-supplements-are-often-not-what-they-seem.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0]New York Times[/url]

This responds nicely to the common libertarian claim that we don't need an FDA or government checking quality. "The free market will take care of it."

"Asian-Americans have been moving steadily toward the Democrats and away from the GOP. In 2012, Asians supported Obama by a staggering 73-26, compared to 62-35 in 2008. This is a remarkable trajectory for a group that, back in 1992, supported George H.W. Bush over Bill Clinton by a strong 54-30 margin. In every election since then, Asians have increased their support for the Democratic candidate, including elections like 2004 where most other groups, even progressive ones, were going in the opposite direction:

"Asian-Americans have been moving steadily toward the Democrats and away from the GOP. In 2012, Asians supported Obama by a staggering 73-26, compared to 62-35 in 2008. This is a remarkable trajectory for a group that, back in 1992, supported George H.W. Bush over Bill Clinton by a strong 54-30 margin. In every election since then, Asians have increased their support for the Democratic candidate, including elections like 2004 where most other groups, even progressive ones, were going in the opposite direction: